Cultural adaptation in measuring common client characteristics with an urban Mainland Chinese sample

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to develop a culturally adapted version of the Systematic Treatment Selection-Innerlife (STS) in China. Methods: A total of 300 nonclinical participants collected from Mainland China and 240 nonclinical US participants were drawn from archival data. A Chinese version of the STS was developed, using translation and back-translation procedures. After confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the original STS sub scales failed on both samples, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was then used to access whether a simple structure would emerge on these STS treatment items. Parallel analysis and minimum average partial were used to determine the number of factor to retain. Results: Three cross-cultural factors were found in this study, Internalized Distress, Externalized Distress and interpersonal relations. Conclusions: This supported that regardless of whether one is in presumably different cultural contexts of the USA or China, psychological distress is expressed in a few basic channels of internalized distress, externalized distress, and interpersonal relations, from which different manifestations in different culture were also discussed.

Keywords:

• culture and psychotherapy
• client characteristics
• STS
• cross-cultural psychology
• Chinese sample